A user who interacts with a search system may not know the canonical name of a sought-after item. To address this lack of knowledge, the user often attempts to describe the characteristics of the item. For example, assume that the user is attempting to find information regarding a particular movie title. If the user is not sure of the movie title, he or she may enter the lead actor of the movie, the genre of the movie title, the release date of the movie title, and so on, or any combination thereof, and/or other metadata about the item. The search system may respond to the user's input by generating one or more query suggestions, e.g., beneath an input box in which the user inputs his or her input original query. The search system may generate the suggestions in different ways, such as by consulting information regarding similar queries that were previously submitted by other users, and/or by relying on dictionary resources.
The above strategy yields mixed results. In some cases, the search system fails to identify the desired item, and, furthermore, fails to provide any meaningful assistance to the user in refining his or her search. In other cases, the search system may provide suggestions to the user which correctly identify to the sought-after item. The user may then execute a formal search based one of the suggestions. Yet there is no guarantee that the search will identify meaningful results. For example, a suggestion may identify a desired movie title. But when the user “clicks on” or otherwise selects the suggestion, the search system may indicate that there are no “hits” for the movie title.
The above potential drawbacks in existing search strategies are cited by way of illustration, not limitation; existing search strategies may have further shortcomings.